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Mike Morrell on Hardball - Iraq War, Mistake or Crime?

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ZVUGKTUBM
Floridatexan
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Floridatexan

Floridatexan




Mike Morrell was President Bush's CIA briefer prior to the invasion of Iraq and was later promoted to CIA Deputy Director.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/michael-morell-bush-cheney-iraq-war

For a dozen years, the Bush-Cheney crowd have been trying to escape—or cover up—an essential fact of the W. years: President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and their lieutenants misled the American public about the WMD threat supposedly posed by Saddam Hussein in order to grease the way to the invasion of Iraq. For Bush, Cheney, and the rest, this endeavor is fundamental; it is necessary to protect the legitimacy of the Bush II presidency. Naturally, Karl Rove and other Bushies have quickly tried to douse the Bush-lied-us-into-war fire whenever such flames have appeared. And in recent days, as Jeb Bush bumbled a question about the Iraq War, he and other GOPers have peddled the fictitious tale that his brother launched the invasion because he was presented lousy intelligence. But now there's a new witness who will make the Bush apologists' mission even more impossible: Michael Morell, a longtime CIA official who eventually became the agency's deputy director and acting director. During the preinvasion period, he served as Bush's intelligence briefer.

Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball on Tuesday night, Morell made it clear: The Bush-Cheney administration publicly misrepresented the intelligence related to Iraq's supposed WMD program and Saddam's alleged links to Al Qaeda.

Host Chris Matthews asked Morell about a statement Cheney made in 2003: "We know he [Saddam Hussein] has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." Here's the conversation that followed:

MATTHEWS: Was that true?

MORELL: We were saying—

MATTHEWS: Can you answer that question? Was that true?

MORELL: That's not true.

MATTHEWS: Well, why'd you let them get away with it?

MORELL: Look, my job Chris—

MATTHEWS: You're the briefer for the president on intelligence, you're the top person to go in and tell him what's going on. You see Cheney make this charge he's got a nuclear bomb and then they make subsequent charges he knew how to deliver it…and nobody raised their hand and said, "No that's not what we told him."

MORELL: Chris, Chris Chris, what's my job, right? My job—

MATTHEWS: To tell the truth.

MORELL: My job—no, as the briefer? As the briefer?

MATTHEWS: Okay, go ahead.

MORELL: As the briefer, my job is to carry CIA's best information and best analysis to the president of the United States and make sure he understands it. My job is to not watch what they're saying on TV.

The discussion went on:

MATTHEWS: So you're briefing the president on the reasons for war, they're selling the war, using your stuff, saying you made that case when you didn't. So they're using your credibility to make the case for war dishonestly, as you just admitted.

MORELL: Look, I'm just telling you—

MATTHEWS: You just admitted it.

MORELL: I'm just telling you what we said—

MATTHEWS: They gave a false presentation of what you said to them.

MORELL: On some aspects. On some aspects.

There's the indictment, issued by the intelligence officer who briefed Bush and Cheney: The Bush White House made a "false presentation" on "some aspects" of the case for war. "That's a big deal," Matthews exclaimed. Morell replied, "It's a big deal."

And there's more. Referring to the claims made by Bush, Cheney, and other administration officials that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda, Morell noted, "What they were saying about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda publicly was not what the intelligence community" had concluded. He added, "I think they were trying to make a stronger case for the war." That is, stronger than the truth would allow.

Morell's remarks support the basic charge: Bush and Cheney were not misled by flawed intelligence; they used the flawed intelligence to mislead.

*************

Floridatexan

Floridatexan



Floridatexan

Floridatexan

ZVUGKTUBM

ZVUGKTUBM

Great videos, FT. I watched each one. It is becoming more clear that the Iraq war arose from lies, propaganda, and more lies. It cannot be denied; even from our most vociferous forum propagandist!

Thankfully, the lies that lead to the invasion of Iraq are becoming a heavy weight that the 2016 GOP contenders must carry with them. Who will be the first of them to throw George W. Bush under the bus by declaring that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the ultimate foreign policy disaster?

The chickens always come home to roost......

http://www.best-electric-barbecue-grills.com

KarlRove

KarlRove

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:Great videos, FT. I watched each one. It is becoming more clear that the Iraq war arose from lies, propaganda, and more lies. It cannot be denied; even from our most vociferous forum propagandist!

Thankfully, the lies that lead to the invasion of Iraq are becoming a heavy weight that the 2016 GOP contenders must carry with them. Who will be the first of them to throw George W. Bush under the bus by declaring that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was the ultimate foreign policy disaster?

The chickens always come home to roost......

And Hillary is just as guilty, so I guess she is not a contender either. WHo is going to take her spot?

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/22/1386781/-George-W-Bush-Did-Something-Much-Worse-Than-Lie-Us-Into-War

The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. The regime has long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist groups, and there are al Qaeda terrorists inside Iraq. This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.

Radio Address of George W. Bush, September 28, 2002


"Something critical is being lost in the torrent of pixels being spilled by the media as Jeb Bush wriggles haplessly, like some prehistoric insect trapped in amber, struggling to explain away, recast or rationalize his brother's hideous legacy. Many of us with functional memories concluded long ago that Jeb's brother deliberately lied us into a pointless war, one that resulted in pointless maiming and pointless deaths of our own soldiers and perhaps a million Iraqi civilians, and the equally pointless rise of a nihilistic cult of deluded savages we know as ISIS.
And although many Americans, for various reasons, don't want to face up to it, that is the truth. There may be be a "competing narrative," there may be political "spin," but there really can only be one truth, and Jeb Bush and the secretive Billionaires who hope to install him as the country's next President know that truth happens to be very, very inconvenient for him when the country has not yet forgotten what happened the last time a Bush occupied that office. When Jeb said he'd rely on his trusted brother for foreign policy advice, well, that just made things worse.

There is, however, an even more heinous aspect to what Jeb's "trusted brother" did, and it shouldn't be allowed to escape down the memory hole. We've been lied into wars before, with similar disastrous results.  But George W. Bush did something far worse than lie us into a war: he did it in a breathtakingly cynical and malevolent way--in effect, by holding a gun to every Americans' head and threatening to pull the trigger. He did it by holding us--all of us--hostage to a twisted ideology that demanded the war, waving the gun at calculated intervals in our face, the way any terrorist would.  And he told us flat out, over and over again, that if we didn't do what he said, we'd all be killed.

Paul Waldman, writing for The Week, puts his finger on why what Bush did was much worse than mere lying:

What the Bush administration launched in 2002 and 2003 may have been the most comprehensive, sophisticated, and misleading campaign of government propaganda in American history. Spend too much time in the weeds, and you risk missing the hysterical tenor of the whole campaign.

[...]

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

Mike Morrell on Hardball - Iraq War, Mistake or Crime? WarCardChart

935 LIES

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2008/01/23/5641/false-pretenses

(links to searchable database)

ANTHRAX:

Here's a timeline of the 2001 Anthrax letters attack:

Sept. 17-18, 2001: Five letters are sent to ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Post and American Media, the publisher of the National Enquirer, from a Trenton, N.J. postmark.

Oct. 2, 2001: Two weeks after sniffing powder in a letter sent to the American Media building in Florida, The Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, who worked at in the building in Boca Raton, is hospitalized.

Oct. 4, 2001: Stevens is diagnosed with inhalational anthrax. He dies the next day. Three days later, tests run on his computer keyboard also test positive for anthrax.

Oct. 9, 2001: Authorities believe this is the date when two more letters were sent to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

Oct. 10, 2001: A third American Media employee tests positive for anthrax. The National Enquirer headquarters is shut down.

Oct. 12, 2001: A letter sent to NBC News, which tests positive for anthrax, is turned over to the FBI. It had already been opened.

Oct. 15, 2001: The letter sent to Sen. Daschle is opened. Two days later, 31 Capitol Hill staffers test positive for anthrax. Spores are detected in a Senate  mail room.

Oct. 21/22, 2001: Two postal employees at the Brentwood post office in D.C., Thomas L. Morris, Jr., 55, and Joseph P. Curseen, 47, die of anthrax exposure.

Oct. 25, 2001: A mail service worker at the State Department is hospitalized and tests positive for anthrax.

Oct. 29, 2001:A New York City hospital employee, 61-year-old Kathy Ngyuen, is diagnosed with inhalational anthrax. She dies two days later.

Nov. 7, 2001: President George W. Bush says the anthrax letters represent another terrorist attack on the United States.

Nov. 20, 2001: Ottile Lundgren, 94, of Connecticut is diagnosed with anthrax. She dies the next day.

April 18, 2002: Anthrax spores matching the profile of those sent in the letters are found outside a containment area at Fort Detrick are found, including inside the office of Dr. Bruce Ivins. Ivins had been testing spores at Fort Detrick since the attack occurred.

April 11, 2007: Ivins is placed under periodic surveillance and is declared a suspect in connection with the attacks.

July 2008: Ivins is informed that the FBI is planning to press charges against him for alleged involvement in the anthrax letters.

July 29, 2009:Ivins dies of a drug overdose.

August 8, 2009: The FBI declares that Ivins was the sole person behind the anthrax attacks.



Read more: http://www.wjla.com/articles/2011/10/2001-anthrax-attacks-timeline-five-die-after-letters-mailed-68155.html#ixzz3auS9uqZW
Follow us: @ABC7News on Twitter | WJLATV on Facebook


PAUL WELLSTONE:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/10/25/george-bush-sr-on-wellstone/


WEEKEND EDITION OCTOBER 25-27, 2002

Pappy Bush on Paul Wellstone: "Who Is This Chickenshit?"

by WAYNE MADSEN

"Before we all get sucked into George W. Bush’s eulogies of the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone let us not forget what his father, Bush 41, called the Senator at a White House reception for newly-elected members of Congress in 1991.

Wellstone, who ran on a progressive platform, did not think Bush 41 cared one wit about education, health care, and workers’ safety issues.

So when Wellstone met Bush in a typical White House pro forma reception line, he used the occasion to urge Bush on three different occasions to spend more time on issues like education and cautioning him against the Persian Gulf War. Of course, Bush was more concerned about fighting the war against Iraq (sound familiar?) and could care less about Wellstone’s issues.

After Wellstone violated Bush 41’s sanctimonious White House protocol, Bush was overheard saying, “Who is this chicken shit?”

Now after Senator Wellstone was tragically killed in a plane crash and “General” Karl Rove is obviously busy trying to figure out how the tragedy can benefit the GOP’s chances of winning control of the Senate, I think it’s time to answer old man Bush’s question.

Far from being a chicken shit, Wellstone actually cared for people, unlike your pathetic son who could not even find a few minutes to attend one or two funerals of his Washington, DC area neighbors who were tragically shot and killed by a couple of snipers. No, Mr. Bush 41, Paul Wellstone was not a chicken shit, that epitaph is better reserved for you and your moronic son.

Bush was entertaining a brutal dictator at his awful Texas ranch while a group of Democratic leaders — Governors Glendening and Warner, Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski, DC Mayor Williams, County Executives Duncan and Curry were celebrating the capture of the snipers and consoling the families of their victims. And then we were told that Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash with his wife, daughter, staffers, and pilots. First confirmation of the tragedy came not from the Senator’s office or that of Minnesota’s governor, but from the scruffy Crawford Ranch. I wanted to puke right then and there on the spot.

Mr. Bush 43: are you the President of the United States or the President of a corporate America resident in Texas? Senator Wellstone certainly knew the answer to that question..."

2seaoat



100k dead Iraqi civilians and the creation of a living hell, and people here are trying to revise the horrible evil of our invasion of Iraq. Create heroes out of the pawns who killed innocents......God help us all, because I supported President Bush and the invasion of Iraq......I believed Colin Powell.....I thought there was a connection because I trusted people. Hillary Clinton as a Senator had limited intelligence, but she was WRONG and has admitted she was wrong. I was wrong..........If the Republican Party defends Iraq and the continued use of the Military to make the special interests happy, it is simple corruption and nothing more....war profiteers who profit on the murder of civilians are the lowest pond scum.

KarlRove

KarlRove

2seaoat wrote:100k dead Iraqi civilians and the creation of a living hell, and people here are trying to revise the horrible evil of our invasion of Iraq.  Create heroes out of the pawns who killed innocents......God help us all, because I supported President Bush and the invasion of Iraq......I believed Colin Powell.....I thought there was a connection because I trusted people.  Hillary Clinton as a Senator had limited intelligence, but she was WRONG and has admitted she was wrong.  I was wrong..........If the Republican Party defends Iraq and the continued use of the Military to make the special interests happy, it is simple corruption and nothing more....war profiteers who profit on the murder of civilians are the lowest pond scum.

Hillary had the same info as everyone else for the vote. Nuf said. If you can't prosecute her you can't prosecute anyone who voted for the war. You can't have it both ways old man

2seaoat



Hillary had the same info as everyone else for the vote. Nuf said. If you can't prosecute her you can't prosecute anyone who voted for the war. You can't have it both ways old man




So let me get this straight.....Gomer should be investigating Senators in regard to Benghazi? You seem to be pretty ignorant about lines of command in the executive branch.......I guess my bad.....Senators are now part of the executive branch.....who knew?

KarlRove

KarlRove

You seem to be ignorant on how much intel these folks ACTUALLY GET.

KarlRove

KarlRove

again OLD MAN IF BUSH BURNS SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE WHO VOTED FOR THE WAR.....YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS....

2seaoat



You seem to be ignorant on how much intel these folks ACTUALLY GET.


So the senators gave 99 votes to compel the President to keep them informed about the Iran discussions on nuclear weapons because they are getting too much information from the executive branch.....what planet have you been living on.....people in the executive branch during the Bush administration cooked the books and a 100k civilians died.....four Americans die in Benghazi, and four thousand died in this fake war........yep, I think I understand.

ZVUGKTUBM

ZVUGKTUBM

Bush isn't going to burn for anything; however, his legacy from Iraq seems to be burning every GOP contender for the 2016 election. They can't even give a straight answer on whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a worthy cause. Razz

It is about time all of this shit comes to light. Justice always seems to eventually prevail......

http://www.best-electric-barbecue-grills.com

Floridatexan

Floridatexan

ZVUGKTUBM wrote:Bush isn't going to burn for anything; however, his legacy from Iraq seems to be burning every GOP contender for the 2016 election. They can't even give a straight answer on whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a worthy cause. Razz

It is about time all of this shit comes to light. Justice always seems to eventually prevail......

The good thing about Jeb running is that it's bringing all of this back into the light of day. It's hard to confront this kind of evil, but it must be brought to into the sunshine, as hard as it is to confront.

Wordslinger

Wordslinger

What the republicans or democrats say about the ongoing war in Iraq is meaningless.

It's what the American people think of the war in Iraq that counts.

Yes, Hillary voted for Bush's war -- and Bush's war was the greatest diplomatic and political failure in American history -- a winless, unending fraud built on a reeking sack of lies. More than 75% of Americans believe the above statement. Reality.

Markle

Markle

2seaoat wrote:You seem to be ignorant on how much intel these folks ACTUALLY GET.


So the senators gave 99 votes to compel the President to keep them informed about the Iran discussions on nuclear weapons because they are getting too much information from the executive branch.....what planet have you been living on.....people in the executive branch during the Bush administration cooked the books and a 100k civilians died.....four Americans die in Benghazi, and four thousand died in this fake war........yep, I think I understand.

First ambassador killed on US soil in 70 years. It was known and they LIED.

2seaoat



First ambassador killed on US soil in 70 years. It was known and they LIED.


Please post in the morning when you are thinking straight......the above makes no sense.

Wordslinger

Wordslinger

KarlRove wrote:
2seaoat wrote:100k dead Iraqi civilians and the creation of a living hell, and people here are trying to revise the horrible evil of our invasion of Iraq.  Create heroes out of the pawns who killed innocents......God help us all, because I supported President Bush and the invasion of Iraq......I believed Colin Powell.....I thought there was a connection because I trusted people.  Hillary Clinton as a Senator had limited intelligence, but she was WRONG and has admitted she was wrong.  I was wrong..........If the Republican Party defends Iraq and the continued use of the Military to make the special interests happy, it is simple corruption and nothing more....war profiteers who profit on the murder of civilians are the lowest pond scum.

Hillary had the same info as everyone else for the vote. Nuf said. If you can't prosecute her you can't prosecute anyone who voted for the war. You can't have it both ways old man

Hey War Hero, that's just more right wing bullshit.  Hillary didn't cook up any false evidence to get us into Iraq -- Dubya and Cheney did that.  The real problem is that so many republicans and democrats BELIEVED THE LIES BUSH AND GANG WERE PITCHING.  Hillary didn't cook the books to get us into a war -- it was the fucking republican born again asshole president who did that!!

ZVUGKTUBM

ZVUGKTUBM

Wordslinger wrote:The real problem is that so many republicans and democrats BELIEVED THE LIES BUSH AND GANG WERE PITCHING.

Yes, and the chickens are finally coming home to roost. The 2003 invasion of Iraq will be felt in the 2016 election results. The GOP is desperate to brush some of the dirt from that folly off onto the prospective Democratic candidate.

http://www.best-electric-barbecue-grills.com

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